The girl of ashes
by whenthemarshmallowmettheslayer
Summary: "Katniss?" It croaks out in concern for you. You don't reply. You can't even though there are no ashes in your mouth from the dream (yet). It's funny, you think without feeling an ounce of actually amusement. You're acting more like a corpse than it is. (Or Katniss time travels before her first Hunger Games,)


There's a corpse in your bed. She's pretty in her sleep; they say the dead look like they're sleeping, but you had known better until now (expect with Rue - another girl you failed - after you were done weaving flowers around her and even in her to cover the gaping wound in her stomach from Marvel's spear). It's quiet here. No screaming, pulling crowds and fire falling from the sky. Here is your home. Not the one in Victor's Village but the one you had before. The one destroyed in the bombing of District Twelve after your second game. Your nails dig into your palm but you pay no mind to the pain (you should, you really should because dreams don't physically hurt you) as you take heavy breathes in and out. You do what you've done every bad morning for years now: you make a list in your head. It's like a child's game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after a few years, but it helps, or it's usually comforting in it's repetition. This though isn't usual so you have to play a different game when that one doesn't work. An older game that's not really a game.

Your name is Katniss Everdeen but you're more known as the Rebellion's Mocking Jay.  
You are twenty-one years old. You shot President Coin, you watched Snow suffocate on his own blood as he laughed the same day, and you didn't die with them (Peeta didn't let you). You wanted to. You had wanted to kill yourself with Cinna's last gift. There are days were you still want to die. The feeling hangs heavy over you during those days and you paint. You're not as good as Peeta, and you doubt you ever will be, but that isn't the point. It helps. The painting, the coloring, whatever the hell you want to call it. The heaviness is still there but it can't overwhelm you. You're too busy choosing a color and not painting over the lines Peeta made.

A noise brings you from your thoughts and makes you realize the mistake you made. The corpse is younger than it should be not only just pretty. It's eyelashes flutter open and there's another noise from it even you haven't touched the body. (You learnt that from your time in the first games. Corpses can make noises when you mess with the body.) It squints it's blue eyes up at you. It's not the color in them that unnerves you even though your mother has the same shade. It's the life in them - the concern. It's hand (A thin wrist. It's not boney but thin none the less.) reaches out to touch you. You jerk back, almost falling off the bed, before it can and because of that Buttercup is jostled from his spot at the foot of the bed. The cat hisses at you with an annoyed expression on his ugly face. He's thinner, you note as you watch his reaction.

"Katniss?" It croaks out in concern for you.

You don't reply. You can't even though there are no ashes in your mouth from the dream (yet). It's funny, you think without feeling an ounce of actually amusement. You're acting more like a corpse than it is.

Real or not real your head demands. (You just want to wake up. The humor in that isn't missed on you once again.) You simply pinch yourself and what happens when you do is anything but simple. You feel pain in the skin between your nails that are short from you bitting on them.

Did you die? You can't help but wonder as you twist and stumble out of the bed, the coffin, you shared with Prim's corpse. Now, if you didn't already have it before, you have it's attention - it's fear. You don't want it. You run out of the house despite the garments put upon you. It's early so barely anyone is out in the cold (just another thing that's wrong) street. Normally you would be thankful considering your attire but this isn't normal. You haven't known normal since one slip of paper, one name, out of thousands was called out that day. But this though. This was far different than any other difference from the norm.

You're too wrapped up in your thoughts you didn't realize where your legs were carrying you. It should have been obvious: where do girls go when they are afraid? (To their fathers.) They go home. Victor's Village is easy to slip into. What isn't easy is the sight of Peeta and your own homes being barren. Oh both houses furnished when you peek into them but it isn't furnished with each of your things. Haymitch's house s though. You can tell from the a sip from empty bottle of liquor left in the garden bed full of weeds. Unbidden you can't help but think Greasy Sae isn't here because it wouldn't be like that if she was.

You don't even have to break into the house. The idiot left it opened. When you find Haymitch - the idiot - he's passed out drunk. The smell of liquor is noise wrinkling and leaves a bad taste in your mouth because, yes, Haymitch has his liquor (and raises geese when he's out of it and waiting for the next train) as you have hunting and Peeta has baking but he doesn't get this drunk. Gone is the bad taste in your mouth because anger sparks in you at this betrayal (never mind none of them had actually verbally promised anything - it had been an unspoken promise of to never go too far, to be there when of them fell because of course one of them - all of them - were going to have relapse) and it's odd - it's a relief because for so long you've no longer been the girl on fire.

You've been what's left after a fire.

You've been a girl of ashes. (They, the people you loved and the people you killed, shovel ashes in your mouth just as you had shoved flowers into Rue's bloodied chest.)

* * *

A/N: Originally posted on ao3 under the pen name youngjusticewriter.

I blame ServantOfMischief for this plot bunny. ;) (We were talking about Hunger Games - a book series I loved as a kid yet never really wrote for - a few months back and I started dabbling with writing this because my brain is obsessed with time travel.)

I generally don't write second person but my brain wouldn't  
work with anything else for some reason. I currently don't have the time to expand on this but I didn't want it to rot in my writing app either.

Also, on the off chance you read my PJ time travel fic, I (finally) almost am done. (Why did I think having two fight scenes in one chapter was a good idea?)


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